LPG transportation ahead of demanding winter season in the country – Pakistan Oil & Gas sector update

LPG transportation ahead of demanding winter season in the country – Pakistan Oil & Gas sector update

LAHORE: The LPG Association of Pakistan (LPGAP) said on Friday, the private sector of Pakistan has started importing the Liquefied Petroleum Gas to meet the challenging demand cycle during the winter season.

“The private sector is robust and proactive in ensuring demand requirements are met efficiently and in a timely manner across the country,” said Belal Jabbar, LPGAP spokesman.

LAGAP said the first ship to cater for winter season demands has already arrived at the Engro Vopak Terminal Limited facility in Karachi. The ship contains approximately 1600 Mega Tonnes (MT) of LPG and it is imported by an LPG Marketing company, Aftab Traders. Another cargo approximately of 2500 MT has been imported by an LPG production firm called Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited in Karachi. This cargo is expected to arrive at Karachi port on 18^th of October.

“For the last 11 years, since deregulation of the sector, private sector LPG marketing companies and producers have regularly imported product throughout the year to maintain price stability.”

These cargoes had to be imported on a very short notice as local production of LPG at Public sector’s Oil and Gas Development Company Limited’s (OGDCL) Bobi and Dakhni gas fields had stopped due to various technical and management issues. OGDCL has been struggling to cope with the demanding Oil & Gas market for the last few years now.

The Bobi Gas field had to be shut down after major parts of Sind were affected heavily by disastrous flooding. Dakni Gas Facility, on the other hand, is going through its annual maintenance work.

Bilal Jabbar further added that another LPG facility at Kunnar will be shut down from Oct 15-24 for maintenance and repair jobs. Together, Bobi, Dakhni and Kunnar are producing 140MT/D of LPG on a daily basis, which consititutes about 12 percent of Pakistan’s total daily production.

LPGAP’s spokesperson was clearly critical of governments LPG Policies and he commented that impuge policies would have pressurised LPG marketing companies to imported LPG from selected LPG brokers throughout the year regardless of market realities, which led to a sharp increase in LPG prices.

“Current imports are a natural response to the demand-supply imbalance and are evidence of the success of a deregulated LPG sector,” he said.

Posted by Ahmed Tariq on Oct 18 2011. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry